Ddays
Hooked
Hey all, thank you for taking the time to check out my build thread. Before I get started I want to first thank Eddie & Cindy for making this possible. I can't imagine how much time & energy you guys put into this website. It is awesome. Second, I want to thank all of the contributors out there for all of the great ideas I have picked up from all of you. I've waited a while to do this build thread so I could get my feet wet around the forum and get a feel for how everything works before I started. So after 2 months I still don't know squat but, oh well, on with the build...
I have a lot of background to fill in to get to where I am at now, so this will be the first of a couple of those....
We named our Jeep 'Gruff', from the old kids story, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, because, well, Jeeps can climb like billy goats. Additionally, my youngest daughter said that the Jeep was a he, and not a she. I had a build in mind and planned it out in 2014 during a very dark time for our family. I won't rehash my initial wave story when I joined WAL, but suffice it to say, this Jeep has a lot of my mother and father in it.
So, I surprised everyone one day by pulling into the driveway with this spindly little guy in June of 2014
As far as options go I ordered Gruff from the factory with the hard top, towing package and that's it.
The initial build list was this:
3.5" RE Superflex lift
4:88 re-gear with G2 gears
Smittybilt SRC front & XRC rear bumpers
Smittybilt 12,000 winch
Smittybilt bolt-on rock rails
ProComp Xtreme MT2 37" tires
Fuel Hostage 18 x 9 wheels
Sleeve & gusset kit for front D30 axle
Truck lite headlights (got one thing right so far)
Spyder Auto tail lights.
ProComp light bar
Buswhacker Flat fenders because of Pa laws requiring wheels be covered.
And that's pretty much it. Free Smittybilt sticker to anyone that can guess where I went shopping!
So here's what Gruff looked like after all this was done;
Not bad. Looks good and was built mostly with trails and muddin' in mind. Also, keep in mind that this was all done before I started any forum lurking so I bought what I did
based on catalogs at that point. I added a couple things later, like these Body armor doors.
So we had a lot of fun the first Summer with some trips to our "mountains" up near Benezette and Medix Run, PA where we had a hunting camp. Lots of old gas well roads and trails to run around on.
And my youngest daughter, who was a junior in high school at the time, got to drive it to first day of school that year.
She was very popular with the boys for some reason :idontknow:
I drilled her on the specs & general workings of Gruff so if someone asked her what kind of lift we had, etc, she'd know what was going on.
Funny, she developed an interest in general auto knowledge watching everthing get added to the Jeep.
That pretty sums up everything that was done prior to my WAL lurking days. I'll add that part of the build story tomorrow.
I promise, things get more interesting...
I have a lot of background to fill in to get to where I am at now, so this will be the first of a couple of those....
We named our Jeep 'Gruff', from the old kids story, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, because, well, Jeeps can climb like billy goats. Additionally, my youngest daughter said that the Jeep was a he, and not a she. I had a build in mind and planned it out in 2014 during a very dark time for our family. I won't rehash my initial wave story when I joined WAL, but suffice it to say, this Jeep has a lot of my mother and father in it.
So, I surprised everyone one day by pulling into the driveway with this spindly little guy in June of 2014
As far as options go I ordered Gruff from the factory with the hard top, towing package and that's it.
The initial build list was this:
3.5" RE Superflex lift
4:88 re-gear with G2 gears
Smittybilt SRC front & XRC rear bumpers
Smittybilt 12,000 winch
Smittybilt bolt-on rock rails
ProComp Xtreme MT2 37" tires
Fuel Hostage 18 x 9 wheels
Sleeve & gusset kit for front D30 axle
Truck lite headlights (got one thing right so far)
Spyder Auto tail lights.
ProComp light bar
Buswhacker Flat fenders because of Pa laws requiring wheels be covered.
And that's pretty much it. Free Smittybilt sticker to anyone that can guess where I went shopping!
So here's what Gruff looked like after all this was done;
Not bad. Looks good and was built mostly with trails and muddin' in mind. Also, keep in mind that this was all done before I started any forum lurking so I bought what I did
based on catalogs at that point. I added a couple things later, like these Body armor doors.
So we had a lot of fun the first Summer with some trips to our "mountains" up near Benezette and Medix Run, PA where we had a hunting camp. Lots of old gas well roads and trails to run around on.
And my youngest daughter, who was a junior in high school at the time, got to drive it to first day of school that year.
She was very popular with the boys for some reason :idontknow:
I drilled her on the specs & general workings of Gruff so if someone asked her what kind of lift we had, etc, she'd know what was going on.
Funny, she developed an interest in general auto knowledge watching everthing get added to the Jeep.
That pretty sums up everything that was done prior to my WAL lurking days. I'll add that part of the build story tomorrow.
I promise, things get more interesting...
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